In November, Microsoft began unveiling the first phases of a major rebrand, starting with an overhaul of its entire suite of Office icons, followed soon after by a redesign of its Outlook email app. “It’s the beginning of a larger set of guidelines,” says Becky Brown, creative director at Microsoft. Designers and engineers from various…
Silicon Valley has always had sky-high ambitions–and the flameouts to match. Below, we examine the fiery fate of three of the original dot-com boom’s most prominent companies: Netscape, Pixelon and theglobe.com. Netscape Industry watchers say Netscape died with its acquisition by AOL for $4.2 billion in 1999 (chronicled in the National Geographic series Valley of…
Matthew Carnahan cannot be accused of false advertising. The creator of Valley of the Boom, premiering Jan. 13 on Nat Geo, pitched the genre-bending scripted-and-documentary hybrid as a project that would elasticize and perhaps even traumatize the storied cable network. “I told them I was going to blow up their perfect gold box,” Carnahan says,…
For the brand marketers among the 180,000 attendees and more than 4,400 exhibiting companies making their annual march on Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show is both a starting gun and FOMO-charged crucible. Hard on the heels of the holiday season, it’s the unofficial start of the year and stepping off the plane at McCarran…
Few brands have to simultaneously navigate how to talk to users as a brand and how to talk to other brands that want access to their users. But that’s the position Spotify and Reddit find themselves in. That’s why, ahead of the Jan. 8 kickoff of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where both…
Even in an era of infinite digital metrics, publishers and brands are still faced with an age-old problem: It’s hard to measure how your content affects people. Mention ROI, and most brand marketers go white from memories of a budget meeting gone wrong. Impressions, page views, shares, scroll depth, time spent, brand lift: The best…
In 2017, nearly 17 million Americans had their identities stolen. If they followed the Federal Trade Commission’s recommended 40-page recovery process, they had to contact the companies where fraud occurred; place fraud alerts with credit bureaus; review their credit reports; report the identity theft to the FTC and their local police departments; close new charges;…
If you’ve been to a major American city in the past year, you’ve noticed it: sidewalks strewn with discarded pay-per-use electric scooters. Riders seemingly drop them to the ground as soon as they’re done with them, no matter where they are. It’s kind of like a parade of visitors coming to your house and throwing…
From beauty boxes to streaming platforms, subscription services are becoming part of the norm. But with more services to choose from, how can brands make their subscription offerings stand out? New research from digital marketing company Digitas sheds light on what keeps subscribers around (49 percent said access to a large selection) and what makes…
Welcome to 2019 and our first issue of the year, appropriately focused on the Consumer Electronics Show, which is where many brand marketers, media execs and creatives will start their year, looking through the prism of technology–tactically and strategically. What tools and capabilities do I need to get to where I want to be in…
Traditional television ad spend is down, indicative of the fact that the TV screen, which for so long was the epicenter of most homes in the U.S., is no longer king of the media jungle. And the numbers reflect this: Per eMarketer, mobile surpassed TV in terms of ad spend in 2018 with wireless devices…
It all started with a viral video. James Shani had already created a music video for Nick Cannon when he was in college in 2013, but he made a bigger splash with a Tesla spec commercial in 2014. He even found a way to get it to Elon Musk, founder and CEO of the carmaker,…
In an increasingly digital world, brands have to constantly reevaluate their strategies, and branded sweepstakes are no exception. New research from digital marketing solutions company HelloWorld found that the key is to keep it simple: 64 percent of consumers would prefer a prize that makes their daily lives easier over one that makes them feel…
PS260, a creative editorial company that specializes in postproduction and visual effects, didn’t launch at an ideal time. The bicoastal firm opened its doors shortly after 9/11, “a time we wanted to feel rooted in New York,” managing partner Zarina Mak explained. In fact, the shop’s name is a nod to the city’s public school…
2018 was anything but dull for the ad-agency world. One could argue that it was a year defined by industry whiplash. In one moment, we heard about another agency leader being shown the door. The next, Martin Sorrell reemerged, thumbing his nose at the advertising establishment he helped create. Then Alex Bogusky got back in…
Over Thanksgiving, I had several conversations with nonmedia people about living in a tech dystopian present. They asked me all sorts of questions about Facebook and Google, artificial intelligence and 5G, data and privacy, and blockchain (of course) because, you know, I’m a tech editor. They asked if they should delete their Facebook account (yes),…
In recent years, brands that take a stand have created some of the most memorable marketing. If anyone asked you to recall 2018’s biggest campaign, you’d be talking about Nike’s Colin Kaepernick work in an instant. You may not have liked the work (I hate State Street’s Fearless Girl) or even think the marketers believe…
2019 will be the year of the pig–except in the TV industry, where it will be the year of the Mouse. That’s because Disney is going to dominate 2019, bookending it with a pair of seismic moves. The first is the imminent close of the Disney-Fox merger, which will relocate most of 21st Century Fox’s…
For countless years, creative marketing has been defined by the ads it generates. But ask any ambitious creative team about 2019, and you won’t hear them talking TV spots and preroll. Instead, they’re looking to create ideas that will pierce the culture and defy easy description. An event? An experience? A stunt? A movement? I’ve…
Tom Goodwin is not a futurist. However, as the head of innovation for ZenithMedia, he does get paid to see what’s coming around the bend. As we close out 2018 and get ready for 2019, we talked with Goodwin about which “innovations” caught his eye–for good and bad–this year and what he’s excited about for…
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
